Genetics and South Asia

HarappaWorld HRP0253-HRP0272

I got two participants from the Geno 2.0 Project. While I have calculated their HarappaWorld Admixture results, please note that Geno2 has only about 14,000 SNPs in common with HarappaWorld. Thus these results are very noisy.

Do note that the admixture components do not necessarily represent real ancestral populations. Also, the names I have chosen for the components should be thought of as mnemonics to ease discussion. I chose them based on which populations in my data these components peaked in. They do not tell anything directly about ancestral populations. The best way to look at these admixture results is by comparing individuals and populations. Finally, the standard error estimates on these results can be about 1%. Therefore, it is entirely possible that your 1% exotic admixture result is just noise.

8 Comments.

One cool thing to do would be to ask Brahmins to also leave their gotra if they choose to identify as such-- a gotra is supposed to be a patrilineal lineage that a Brahmin is descended from. I believe 23AndMe provides Y chromosomal data, so it would be interesting to see if something matches up.

23andme lacks sufficient Y resolution to match folk at the gotra level. Geno 2.0 is bit better with subclades but still not sufficient as yet. Now that almost full (50x) Y mapping is available (~$1000-1300), we should soon have better data.

Zack, the Halai Bhatia are from Gujarat (Halai means from Jamnagar in Kathiawar, same as Halai Memons) and should be included with Gujaratis. I see the user AV told you to include them with Sindhis which is very ignorant of him because they have a presence in Gujarat for over 500 years, so if you're going to call them Sindhi then you might as well include every Punjabi and Rajasthani Bhatia as a Sindhi. Quite absurd.

Secondly, the Gujarati Muslims (harappa) should be made a separate group because they have their own Jamaats just as the Gujarati Hindus have their own tens of hundreds of caste associations (Samaj). Since the Hindus practice a softcore brand of Hindutva and are extremely orthodox and caste-conscious in their ways, Hindus from one samaj rarely mix with Hindus from another samaj, and for them to mix with BMWs is a taboo (B = Blacks, M = Muslims, W = Whites).

Now the Muslim groups are different because they do mix with each other both in and outside of India and also sometimes marry Pakistanis, Middle Easterners and White reverts. Otherwise lumping both Hindus and Muslims together makes no sense and could even skew the final conclusion.

Is the Halai Bhatia a Hindu or Muslim? If so include him too. Also is HRP0226 Gujarati Vaniya (harappa) a Hindu or Muslim?

The Gujarati Patel Muslim newcomer has very different results from the 2 gujarati-patels (presumably Hindus) that you have on there, in that there is evidence of Middle Eastern admixture through his elevated Caucasian, SW Asian and non-trivial African, as well as lower South Indian relative to the other Patels. It proves to me that a good number of Gujarati Muslim Patels (that were otherwise traditionally businessman and traders) might differ from their Hindu counterparts to some extent because they mixed with outsiders. Interestingly, his South Indian score is even lower to that of the newcomers HRP0259 Rajasthani Agarwal and HRP0270 Punjabi Chamar even though Patels are hardly an elite class! Again this is proof that Indian Muslims from this part of the region at least did indeed mix with outsiders.

Finally, you need to upload the ASI scores of the latest samples onto the spreadsheet because you haven't done that.

Halai Bhatia are from Gujarat (Halai means from Jamnagar in Kathiawar, same as Halai Memons) and should be included with Gujaratis.

Since I had two Bhatias, I decided to group them together instead of including them with Gujaratis.

the Gujarati Muslims (harappa) should be made a separate group because they have their own Jamaats just as the Gujarati Hindus have their own tens of hundreds of caste associations (Samaj).

I'll do that the next time I change my group assignments.

you need to upload the ASI scores of the latest samples onto the spreadsheet because you haven't done that.

I have stopped doing that since the simple linear regression I was using, while useful as a rough guide, is not the best option. I do plan to report ASI averages for ethnic groups, but haven't yet found a method I like for individual ASI percentages.

As for the Bhatias, I understand that you want to group them together because there are only two of them, but the reason I think grouping them together is not a good idea is because Kutchi Halai Bhatias (who practice clan exogamy and territorial group endogamy) have such an ancient presence in Gujarat and have divisions and sub-divisions based on their religion - in other words, they can be either Hindu or Sunni Muslims in Gujarat. Their social customs differ too, in that the Muslims are meat-eaters, whereas the Hindus are vegetarians - this naturally creates even greater distances between them and serves to re-assert their endogamous practices.

Kutchi Halai Bhatias neither intermarried nor ate food together with Sindhi Bhatias (that is, until these groups formally accepted Islam) and then of course there are language differences. Sindhi Bhatias speak Sindhi, those in Kutch speak Kutchi, and those in Kathiawar and other parts of Gujarat speak Gujarati, although Kutchi and Sindhi are to a great extent mutually intelligable, I should add.

The Halai Bhatia (having transformed into a mercantile trading class) most definitely have a powerfully important presence in Gujarat, and I quote:

â€œThe views of Captain James and Clifford are further corroborated by Ibbetson who wrote :

The Bhatias are a class of Rajputs, originally coming from Bhatner, Jaisalmer and the Rajputana desert, who have come for commercial pursuits. The name would seem to show that they were Bhatia (Called Bhatti in the Punjab); but be that as it may, their Rajput origin appears to be unquestioned. They are numerous in Sindh and Gujarat, where they appear to form the leading mercantile element. â€

" And it was probably by the later Muhammadan invaders that the Bhatia were driven south into the desert and Sind. In Sind, some of the Bhatias still eat fish and drink spirits. Probably most of them have settled in Cutch and Kathiawar since the establishment of Jadeja power (circa. 1350 AD). "

" Bhatias, numbering 28, 332 (1901), including 14, 775 males and 13, 557 females are found principally in Cutch, Kathiawar, Sind, and Bombay City, but are also scattered in small numbers in all the trade centres around the Bombay Presidency. "

Furthermore, the source challenges the legitimacy of self-reported Bhatias outside of historically attested trade centres, even though the same source does mention that the original habitat of the Bhatis appears to have been the Multan and Lahore districts of Punjab:

" Numbers of them are found in the Punjab, Rajputana, and United Provinces, and the Tehri villages in the Himalayas. But no satisfactory proof is forthcoming to show that they really belong to the Bhatia community. "

Their appearance is descibed:

" The Bhatias are well-made, tall and active. They are a little darker, and less regular in features than other Gujarati Hindu traders, though in Cutch they are a remarkably fair and handsome race. Their women are generally fair and handsome. In dress and ornaments, they do not differ much from other Vanias. "